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Astonished Writer Complains About Cyber Theft

Astonished Writer Complains About Cyber Theft

Iranian literary researcher, essayist and critical editor Mokhtar Komeyli has found an article written by him “for sale” on dozens of Iranian websites, much to his astonishment.
Komeyli, 56, in a letter to Akbar Irani, managing director of Written Heritage Research Center, established in 1993 with the support of the Culture Ministry, said he had submitted the article titled ‘Revision and Review of a Few Words in Faraed-o-Solouk’ (a Persian book on morals written in early 13th century by Es’haq bin Ebrahim Sojasi) to the center for publication in its periodical Textual Criticism of Persian Literature, a couple of years ago.
The periodical changed the title of Komeyli’s article but rejected it.
“A few days ago, I decided to revise it and send it to another periodical. I searched on the Internet to see if there were any articles on the subject in the past two years. To my astonishment, I saw my own article and its abstract on various websites.”
It turned out that the websites had put up the article for sale for university students pursuing a degree.
In the letter sent to Irani on February 18, Komeyli named some of the websites. His letter is available on the center’s website mirasmaktoob.ir.
Komeyli ends his letter saying: “I do not know how the rejected article ended up on the websites. But I do know that some valuable articles by my peers and colleagues have also suffered the same unethical practice.”
He urged that the matter be addressed to prevent theft on cyberspace.